PSYCOLOGY

Psychology is an academic and applied discipline that involves the scientific study of mental
functions and behaviors. Psychology has the immediate goal of understanding individuals and groups by
both establishing general principles and researching specific cases, and by many accounts it ultimately
aims to benefit society. In this field, a professional practitioner or researcher is called a psychologist, and
can be classified as a social, behavioral, or cognitive scientist. Psychologists attempt to understand the
role of mental functions in individual and social behavior, while also exploring
the physiological and neurobiological processes that underlie certain cognitive functions and behaviors.
psycologist explore concepts such
as perception, cognition, attention, emotion, phenomenology, motivation, brain
functioning, personality,behavior, and interpersonal relationships. Psychologists of diverse stripes also
consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to
infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition,
to employing empirical anddeductive methods, some especially clinical and counseling psychologists
at times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductivetechniques. Psychology has been
described as a "hub science", with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the
social sciences, natural sciences, medicine, and the humanities, such as philosophy. While
psychological knowledge is often applied to the assessment and treatment of mental health problems, it
is also directed towards understanding and solving problems in many different spheres of human
activity. The majority of psychologists are involved in some kind of therapeutic role, practicing in
clinical, counseling, or school settings. Many do scientific research on a wide range of topics related to
mental processes and behavior, and typically work in university psychology departments or teach in
other academic settings (e.g., medical schools, hospitals). Some are employed in industrial and
organizational settings, or in other areas such as human development and aging, sports, health, and the
media, as well as in forensicanalysis and other aspects of law.
The word psychology literally means, "study of the soul" (, psukh, meaning "breath", "spirit", or
"soul"; and - -logos, translated as "study of" or "research:The Latin wordpsychologia was first
used by the Croatian humanist and Latinist Marko Maruli in his book, Psichiologia de ratione animae
humanae in the late 15th century or early 16th century. The earliest known reference to the
word psychology in English was by Steven Blankaart in 1694 in The Physical Dictionary which refers to
"Anatomy, which treats of the Body, and Psychology, which treats of the Soul."
STRUCTURALISM
German physician Wilhelm Wundt is credited with introducing psychological discovery into
a laboratory setting. Known as the "father of experimental psychology", he founded the first
psychological laboratory, at Leipzig University, in 1879. Wundt focused on breaking down mental
processes into the most basic components, motivated in part by an analogy to recent advances in

chemistry, and its successful investigation of the elements and structure of material. Although Wundt,
himself, was not a structuralist, his student Edward Titchener, a major figure in early American
psychology, was a structuralist thinker opposed to functionalist approaches.
FUNCTIONALISM
Functionalism formed as a reaction to the theories of the structuralist school of thought and was heavily
influenced by the work of the American philosopher, scientist, and psychologist William James. James
felt that psychology should have practical value, and that psychologists should find out how the mind
can function to a person's benefit. In his book, Principles of Psychologypublished in 1890, he laid the
foundations for many of the questions that psychologists would explore for years to come. Other major
functionalist thinkers included John Dewey and Harvey Carr.
Other 19th-century contributors to the field include the German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus, a
pioneer in the experimental study of memory, who developed quantitative models of learning and
forgetting at the University of Berlin, and the Russian-Soviet physiologist Ivan Pavlov, who discovered
in dogs a learning process that was later termed "classical conditioning" and applied to human beings.
Starting in the 1950s, the experimental techniques set forth by Wundt, James, Ebbinghaus, and others
would be reiterated as experimental psychology became increasingly cognitiveconcerned
with information and its processingand, eventually, constituted a part of the wider cognitive science.
[21]
In its early years, this development was seen as a "revolution", as it both responded to and reacted
against strains of thoughtincluding psychodynamics and behaviorismthat had developed in the
meantime.
PSYCHOANALYSIS
From the 1890s until his death in 1939, the Austrian physician Sigmund
Freud developed psychoanalysis, a method of investigation of the mind and the way one thinks; a
systematized set of theories about human behavior; and a form of psychotherapy to treat psychological
or emotional distress, especially unconscious conflict. Freud's psychoanalytic theory was largely based
on interpretive methods, introspection and clinical observations. It became very well known, largely
because it tackled subjects such as sexuality, repression, and the unconscious mind as general aspects of
psychological development. These were largely considered taboo subjects at the time, and Freud
provided a catalyst for them to be openly discussed in polite society. Clinically, Freud helped to pioneer
the method of free association and a therapeutic interest in dream interpretation.
Freud had a significant influence on Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, whose analytical psychology became
an alternative form of depth psychology. Other well-known psychoanalytic scholars of the mid-20th
century included psychoanalysts, psychologists, psychiatrists, and philosophers. Among these thinkers
were Erik Erikson, Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, John Bowlby, and
Sigmund Freud's daughter, Anna Freud. Throughout the 20th century, psychoanalysis evolved into
diverse schools of thought, most of which may be classed as Neo-Freudian.

Psychoanalytic theory and therapy were criticized by psychologists such as Hans Eysenck, and by
philosophers including Karl Popper. Popper, aphilosopher of science, argued that psychoanalysis had
been misrepresented as a scientific discipline, whereas Eysenck said that psychoanalytic tenets had been
contradicted by experimental data. By the end of 20th century, psychology departments in American
universities had becomescientifically oriented, marginalizing Freudian theory and dismissing it as a
"desiccated and dead" historical artifact. Meanwhile, however, researchers in the emerging field
of neuro-psychoanalysis defended some of Freud's ideas on scientific grounds, while scholars of
the humanitiesmaintained that Freud was not a "scientist at all, but ... an interpreter.
BEHAVIORISM
Behaviorism is a discipline that was established in the early 20th century by John B. Watson, and
embraced and extended byEdward Thorndike, Clark L. Hull, Edward C. Tolman, and later B.F. Skinner.
Theories of learning emphasized the ways in which people might be predisposed, or conditioned, by
their environments to behave in certain ways.
Classical conditioning was an early behaviorist model. It posited that behavioral tendencies are
determined by immediate associations between various environmental stimuli and the degree of pleasure
or pain that follows. Behavioral patterns, then, were understood to consist of organisms' conditioned
responses to the stimuli in their environment. The stimuli were held to exert influence in proportion to
their prior repetition or to the previous intensity of their associated pain or pleasure. Much research
consisted of laboratory-based animal experimentation, which was increasing in popularity as
physiology grew more sophisticated.
Skinner's
behaviorism
shared
with
its
predecessors
a
philosophical
inclination
toward positivism and determinism. He believed that the contents of the mind were not open to scientific
scrutiny and that scientific psychology should emphasize the study of observable behavior. He focused
on behaviorenvironment relations and analyzed overt and covert (i.e., private) behavior as a function of
the
organism
interacting
with
its
environment. Behaviorists
usually
rejected
or
deemphasized dualistic explanations such as "mind" or "consciousness"; and, in lieu of probing an
"unconscious mind" that underlies unawareness, they spoke of the "contingency-shaped behaviors" in
which unawareness becomes outwardly manifest.
Notable incidents in the history of behaviorism are John B. Watson's Little Albert experiment which
applied classical conditioning to the developing human child, and the clarification of the difference
between classical conditioning and operant (or instrumental) conditioning, first by Miller and Kanorski
and then by Skinner. Skinner's version of behaviorism emphasized operant conditioning, through which
behaviors are strengthened or weakened by their consequences.
Linguist Noam Chomsky's critique of the behaviorist model of language acquisition is widely regarded
as a key factor in the decline of behaviorism's prominence. Martin Seligman and colleagues discovered
that the conditioning of dogs led to outcomes ("learned helplessness") that opposed the predictions of
behaviorism. But Skinner's behaviorism did not die, perhaps in part because it generated successful

practical applications. The fall of behaviorism as an overarching model in psychology, however, gave
way to a new dominant paradigm: cognitive approaches.
HUMANISM
Psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1943 posited that humans have a hierarchy of needs, and it makes
sense to fulfill the basic needs first (food, water etc.) before higher-order needs can be met.
Humanistic psychology was developed in the 1950s in reaction to both behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
By using phenomenology,intersubjectivity, and first-person categories, the humanistic approach sought
to glimpse the whole personnot just the fragmented parts of the personality or cognitive
functioning. Humanism focused on fundamentally and uniquely human issues, such as individual free
will, personal growth, self-actualization, self-identity, death, aloneness, freedom, and meaning. The
humanistic approach was distinguished by its emphasis on subjective meaning, rejection of determinism,
and concern for positive growth rather than pathology. Some of the founders of the humanistic school of
thought were American psychologists Abraham Maslow, who formulated a hierarchy of human needs,
and Carl Rogers, who created and developed client-centered therapy. Later, positive psychology opened
up humanistic themes to scientific modes of exploration.
GESTALT
Wolfgang Kohler, Max Wertheimer and Kurt Koffka co-founded the school of Gestalt psychology. This
approach is based upon the idea that individuals experience things as unified wholes. This approach to
psychology began in Germany and Austria during the late 19th century in response to the molecular
approach of structuralism. Rather than breaking down thoughts and behavior to their smallest element,
the Gestalt position maintains that the whole of experience is important, and the whole is different than
the sum of its parts.
Gestalt psychology should not be confused with the Gestalt therapy of Fritz Perls, which is only
peripherally linked to Gestalt psychology.
EXISTENTIALISM
In the 1950s and 1960s, largely influenced by the work of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and
Danish philosopher Sren Kierkegaard, psychoanalytically trained American psychologistRollo
May pioneered an existential branch of psychology, which included existential psychotherapy, a method
of therapy that operates on the belief that inner conflict within a person is due to that individual's
confrontation with the givens of existence.
Existential psychologists differed from others often classified as humanistic in their comparatively
neutral view of human nature and in their relatively positive assessment of anxiety Existential
psychologists emphasized the humanistic themes of death, free will, and meaning, suggesting that
meaning can be shaped by myths, or narrative patterns, and that it can be encouraged by an acceptance
of the free will requisite to an authentic, albeit often anxious, regard for death and other future prospects.

Austrian existential psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl drew evidence of meaning's
therapeutic power from reflections garnered from his own internment, and he created a variation of
existential psychotherapy called logotherapy, a type of existentialist analysis that focuses on a will to
meaning (in one's life), as opposed to Adler's Nietzschean doctrine of will to power or Freud's will to
pleasure.
In addition to May and Frankl, Swiss psychoanalyst Ludwig Binswanger and American
psychologist George Kelly may be said to belong to the existential school.
COGNITIVISM
Cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology that studies mental processes including how people
think, perceive, remember, and learn. As part of the larger field of cognitive science, this branch of
psychology is related to other disciplines including neuroscience, philosophy, and linguistics.
Noam Chomsky helped to ignite a "cognitive revolution" in psychology when he criticized the
behaviorists' notions of "stimulus", "response", and "reinforcement", arguing that such ideaswhich
Skinner had borrowed from animal experiments in the laboratorycould be applied to complex human
behavior, most notably language acquisition, in only a superficial and vague manner. The postulation
that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language posed a challenge to the
behaviorist position that all behavior, including language, is contingent upon learning and
reinforcement. Social learning theorists, such as Albert Bandura, argued that the child's environment
could make contributions of its own to the behaviors of an observant subject.
The Mller-Lyer illusion. Psychologists make inferences about mental processes from shared
phenomena such as optical illusions.
Meanwhile, accumulating technology helped to renew interest and belief in the mental states and
representationsi.e., the cognitionthat had fallen out of favor with behaviorists. English
neuroscientistCharles Sherrington and Canadian psychologist Donald O. Hebb used experimental
methods to link psychological phenomena with the structure and function of the brain. With the rise
of computer science and artificial intelligence, analogies were drawn between the processing of
information by humans and information processing by machines. Research in cognition had proven
practical since World War II, when it aided in the understanding of weapons operation. [47] By the late
20th century, though, cognitivism had become the dominant paradigm of mainstream psychology,
and cognitive psychologyemerged as a popular branch.
Assuming both, that the covert mind should be studied and that the scientific method should be used to
study it, cognitive psychologists set such concepts as subliminal processing and implicit memory in
place of the psychoanalytic unconscious mind or the behavioristic contingency-shaped behaviors.
Elements of behaviorism and cognitive psychology were synthesized to form the basis of cognitive
behavioral therapy, a form of psychotherapy modified from techniques developed by American
psychologist Albert Ellis and American psychiatrist Aaron T. Beck. Cognitive psychology was

subsumed along with other disciplines, such as philosophy of mind, computer science, and neuroscience,
under the cover discipline of cognitive science.

SUBFIELDS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

BIOLOGY
CLINICAL
COGNITIVE
COMPARATIVE
DEVELOPMENTAL
EDUCATIONAL AND SCHOOL
EVOLUTIONARY
INDUSTRIALORGANIZATIONAL

9. PERSONALITY
10. SOCIAL
11. POSITIVE

RESEARCH METHODS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

QUALITATIVE AND QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH

CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS
SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES
LONGITUDINAL STUDIES
OBSERVATION IN NATURAL SETTINGS
QUALITATIVE AND DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH
NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
COMPUTATIONAL MODELING
ANIMAL STUDIES

CRITICISM
THEORY
Criticisms of psychological research often come from perceptions that it is a "soft" science. Philosopher
of science Thomas Kuhn's 1962 critique implied psychology overall was in a pre-paradigm state, lacking
the agreement on overarching theory found in mature sciences such as chemistry andphysics.
Because some areas of psychology rely on research methods such as surveys and questionnaires, critics
have asserted that psychology is not an objective science. Other concepts that psychologists are
interested in, such as personality, thinking, and emotion, cannot be directly measured[70] and are often
inferred from subjective self-reports, which may be problematic.

Some critics view statistical hypothesis testing as misplaced. Research[which?] has documented that
many psychologists confuse statistical significance with practical importance. Statistically significant
but practically unimportant results are common with large samples Some psychologists have responded
with an increased use of effect size statistics, rather than sole reliance on the Fisherian p < .
05 significance criterion (whereby an observed difference is deemed "statistically significant" if an
effect of that size or larger would occur with 5% -or less- probability inindependent replications,
assuming the truth of the null-hypothesis of no difference between the treatments).[citation
needed] False positive conclusions, often resulting from the pressure to publish or the author's
own confirmation bias, are an inherent hazard in the field, requiring a certain degree ofskepticism on the
part of readers. Sometimes the debate comes from within psychology, for example between laboratoryoriented researchers and practitioners such as clinicians. In recent years, and particularly in the U.S.,
there has been increasing debate about the nature of therapeutic effectiveness and about the relevance of
empirically examining psychotherapeutic strategies.
PRACTICE
Some observers perceive a gap between scientific theory and its applicationin particular, the
application of unsupported or unsound clinical practices. Critics say there has been an increase in the
number of mental health training programs that do not instill scientific competence. One skeptic asserts
that practices, such as "facilitated communication for infantile autism"; memory-recovery techniques
including body work; and other therapies, such as rebirthing and reparenting, may be dubious or even
dangerous, despite their popularity. In 1984, Allen Neuringer made a similar point[vague] regarding the
experimental analysis of behavior. Current ethical standards of psychology would not permit some
studies to be conducted today. These human studies would violate the Ethics Code of the American
Psychological Association, the Canadian Code of Conduct for Research Involving Humans, and
the Belmont Report. Current ethical guidelines state that using non-human animals for scientific
purposes is only acceptable when the harm (physical or psychological) done to animals is outweighed by
the benefits of the research. Keeping this in mind, psychologists can use on animals research techniques
that could not be used on humans. An experiment by Stanley Milgram raised questions about
the ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress suffered by the
participants. It measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed
them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience. Harry Harlow drew condemnation
for his "pit of despair" experiments on rhesus macaque monkeys at the University of Wisconsin
Madison in the 1970s. The aim of the research was to produce an animal model of clinical depression.
Harlow also devised what he called a "rape rack", to which the female isolates were tied in normal
monkey mating posture. In 1974, American literary critic Wayne C. Booth wrote that, "Harry Harlow
and his colleagues go on torturing their nonhuman primates decade after decade, invariably proving
what we all knew in advancethat social creatures can be destroyed by destroying their social ties." He
writes that Harlow made no mention of the criticism of the morality of his work. University psychology
departments have ethics committees dedicated to the rights and well-being of research subjects.
Researchers in psychology must gain approval of their research projects before conducting any
experiment to protect the interests of human participants and laboratory animals.

 SYSTEMIC BIAS
In 1959 statistician Theodore Sterling examined the results of psychological studies and discovered that
97% of them supported their initial hypotheses, implying a possible publication bias. Similarly, Fanelli
(2010) found that 91.5% of psychiatry/psychology studies confirmed the effects they were looking for,
which was around five times more often than in fields such as space- or geosciences. Fanelli argues that
this is because researchers in "softer" sciences have fewer constraints to their conscious and unconscious
biases.In 2010, a group of researchers reported a systemic bias in psychology studies towards WEIRD
("western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic") subjects.[90] Although only 1/8 people
worldwide fall into the WEIRD classification, the researchers claimed that 6090% of psychology
studies are performed on WEIRD subjects. The article gave examples of results that differ significantly
between WEIRD subjects and tribal cultures, including the Mller-Lyer illusion.
CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Critical psychology is a sub-discipline aimed at evaluating mainstream psychology and attempts to
apply psychology in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of
preventing and treating psychopathology. One of critical psychology's main objections to conventional
psychology is that it ignores the way power differences between social classes and groups can affect the
mental and physical well-being of individuals or groups of people. Contributors to the field
include Klaus Holzkamp and Ian Parker. Key elements within critical psychology include the study of
power relations, situated knowledge, and the dualisms of the self and the agency, and the individual and
the social. A discursive strain of critical psychology was developed in the 1990s by Jonathan Potter and
Derek Edwards. Discursive psychology examines how psychological phenomena are created, made
relevant, and put to use in discourse, verbal interaction, and everyday talk. It is opposed to cognitivist
approaches.